Harry Potter and the Compendium of Hogwash
by Ihateseatbelts
Summary: Some ideas are meant to flourish, and others need to die a quick, lonely death. I'm just going to leave all of these here. Aside from 'For Want of a Nail' springboards with AU-ness of potentially epic proportions, features jilted boyfriends, cursed ferrets, conflicted overlords and more.
1. The Green-Eyed Monster

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Harry Potter, or his universe, or his owl, or even his awesome wand polishing kit. That's all the property of J K Rowling. As a matter offact, I don't own shack jit, so how 'bout you get off my back, 'kay?

Sorry.

**TITLE: **_Harry Potter and the Compendium of Hogwash_

**SUMMARY: **A couple of the Gryffindor boys have a completely grown-up discussion. Ron and Neville are off somewhere playing chess - I don't know.

* * *

><p>Dean yawned as he plopped down on his four-poster bed.<p>

'So - I bumped into Corner downstairs.'

'That yoke?' rang Seamus' voice from the bathroom.

Dean ignored him. 'Oi. Harry,' he called.

The bespectacled wizard glanced up from his copy of _Seeker Weekly_. 'Yeah?'

'I bumped into Corner downstairs,' Dean said again with a slow nod.

Harry stared at him. 'Okay,' he said, returning to his magazine.

Dean frowned for a moment.

'So... you don't wanna know... ' he said nonchalantly, making odd hand gestures as he regarded the ceiling, possibly waiting for some divine sign.

Harry sighed as he shut the magazine. 'Yes, Dean?'

'You don't have to be like that, mate- '

'Like what?' asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.

Dean groaned into his hands.

'Are you all righ- ' started Harry as the taller wizard launched himself from the four-poster.

'Look,' said Dean with a deep exhale. 'I know things are different with you and Ginny now, yeah? I get that, and I _swear _this has nothing to do with me- '

'Sounds like it does... '

'But it's a small world, mate,' continued Dean, 'and while you might think that your actions don't reflect on us- '

'Where are you going with this, Dean?'

Dean glowered. 'Corner says that Padma saw you and Ginny sucking face round the back of the Shrieking Shack, and you had your hands up her- '

'Oh yeah?' echoed another mirthful lilt from the bathroom.

Harry shrugged. 'Fair play,' he muttered. 'We thought it was pretty remote, you know – what with it being the Shack.'

Dean gave him an incredulous look. 'You what? Are you having a laugh, mate?'

'No, but I am!' Seamus shouted in-between sniggers.

'What's your issue anyway?' asked Harry, arms crossed.

'My issue?' blustered Dean, his eyes narrowed. 'What's _your _issue? Bloody Chosen One – doesn't that count for something? While you're gallivanting around Hogsmeade doing who knows what with... she's a good witch, mate, not some scarlet harlot!'

'You're sounding a lot like Ron right now,' Harry said under his breath.

'And why outside?' Dean pressed on. 'We have _broom _closets, Harry. Myrtle's bathroom!'

'What I want to know,' said Harry, standing up to squarely face the other wizard, 'is why our 'purity' matters to you. And what was Padma even doing there?'

'Cheeky bit of menage a trois?'

'Shut up, Seamus!' Harry and Dean bellowed in chorus.


	2. Expecting

**DISCLAIMER: **It's not mine. Well, the plot is... kind of. You know what I mean.

Sorry.

**TITLE: **_Harry Potter and the Compendium of Hogwash_

**SUMMARY: **Sirius and the gang are expecting an addition after a grueling all-you-can-eat session.

* * *

><p>As he strolled through the exit of the Flaky Graphorn, James Potter inhaled the aroma of dragon's blood which suffused along the winding lanes of a starlit Diagon Alley.<p>

Today bore witness to a momentous victory for British wizardry, in his unnecessarily humble opinion. For a group to have completed the restaurant's Ironbelly Challenge and walk out alive was unheard of, let alone a measly group of three plus something that was kind of like one, but not really one.

'Whew! Nice one,' said James, winking at his companions as he patted his stomach. 'Could go for a nightcap in a bit, whadja reckon?'

Remus shot him a sidelong glance.

'What?' asked James, frowning.

'We've overdone it, don't you think?'

'No,' replied James, picking a stray strip of Fire Crab meat from his teeth. 'No, I don't.'

'But look at what it's done to Sirius,' said Remus reproachfully, his baggy-eyes strained as he pointed an accusing finger at the groaning hulk of robes behind them.

'_Urk... _I think I'm _pregnant_, lads...' panted the hulk.

'That does sound like cause for concern,' said Peter, but no one heard him.

James sauntered over to the straggly-haired mass of robes, giving it a good-natured shove.

'Paddy...' he said, tutting affectionately as he poked the mass with a boot. 'Come on, up you get!'

Sirius moaned in pain as James yanked his arm.

'No, _nonononooooo..._'

Remus winced. 'Easy, Prongs!' He knelt beside Sirius, cautioning James with a raised hand. 'I think this is serious... '

'It is,' came a muffled wail from Sirius' robes. 'I'm having a baby, for f-'

'Come off it, mate,' said James, snorting. 'You might've skipped Pomfrey's lectures, but... you all right, Moony?'

'Maybe he's pregnant too?' offered Peter, as he looked on from thirty feet away.

But he wasn't. James knew that look: the Glassy Stare of Lunar Foreboding. Remus usually got it when he was feeling more hopeless than usual - like the morning before the full moon - or when he ran out of chocolate.

'What was that delicacy called again, James?' His voice was barely audible. 'The one you two swore was spaghetti?'

'It _was _spaghetti,' said James, his brow furrowed.

'No it wasn't. I told you I'd read about it- '

'Piss off, Moony,' James said with a dismissive wave. 'You can't cook Boggart entrails! No one's ever seen a Boggart's true form.'

'But they _have!_' argued Remus, his face ashen. 'In Albania. They use the entrails in transformative potions all the time!'

'There aren't any Boggart entrails in a Polyjuice Potion,' said James, scratching his head.

Remus frantically shook his head.

'But there are in Twinkling Tinctures,' he countered, his eyes wide. 'Why do you think those 'half-vamipre' witches are all sparkly half the time?'

James conceded his point with a nod.

Sirius yelped. 'I think it just kicked... '

'We need to get him to Mungo's, James!' said Remus, his throat tight with fear.

'But it doesn't make any sense, Moony!' James cried. 'You must have some sort of crazy theory, at least. You always do.'

Remus ran a quivering hand through his hair. 'Merlin... ' he murmured, looking up at James through weary but desperate eyes.

'Okay - so you remember how Boggarts can also assume a form by eating body parts?' asked Remus.

James nodded.

'Right,' he continued, 'well you can find those shape-shifting properties in their entrails too. So what I'm thinking is that Sirius ate the entrails, and ate _so _many of them that he was scared the result would- '

' "_Feel like labour"_,' James mouthed. Lily's hearing was unreal. 'But surely he'd need to be pregnant with someone else's, you know... '

'For something like a Boggart,' Remus rasped, 'anything would do. Dead skin, hair- '

'Which Sirius has a _fuckload _of.'

Remus gulped. 'Exactly. Right in the spaghetti and down the hatch.'

'Prongs?' whimpered Sirius. 'I'm scared, mate... '

'It's- ' started James, his voice faltering as he also knelt beside the sobbing wizard. 'It's gonna be all right, mate! W- we'll get you to Mungo's... it's... '

The sound of giant blowing raspberries broke the ensuing silence. Peter giggled in the distance.

'I think my water just broke,' grunted Sirius.


End file.
